Guided By Voices: Let's Go Eat the Factory – review

Clanging guitar chords stride across a roistering piano, and Robert Pollard adopts his steeliest voice to declare: "I challenge you to rock." Rise to his challenge and you'll be rewarded: Guided by Voices' return to the fray, eight years after their "final" album and 15 years after this classic lineup disbanded, is exhilarating, a kaleidoscopic burst of ideas and passion and absurdity. Songs tumble into each other, many lasting just a minute or two, yet each one distinct and compelling. Pollard has a gift for lollipop-sweet melody (Doughnut for a Snowman, Chocolate Boy) and lyrics both incisive ("They say you need to hurt/ to go rolling home") and bonkers ("Was mortified/ unfortified/ fixed my eyes on beautiful pies") but never overworks either, shifting from spiky garage to understated romance to queasy Beatles spinoffs as though dancing on hot coals. Add the surreal collages of Tobin Sprout, and this album ought to be a mess. But the band's fleetness keeps it taut, makes it grip.